tvheadend/docs/html/config_epggrab.html

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 <p>
 This tab is used to configure the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) grabbing
 capabilities. Tvheadend supports a variety of different EPG grabbing
 mechanisms. These fall into 3 broad categories, within which there are a
 variety of specific grabber implementations.
 </p>

 <h2>Grabber Types</h2>
 <ul>
  <li>Over-the-Air (OTA) - These grabbers receive EPG data directly from the
  DVB network. This is often the easiest way to get up and running and does
  provide timely updates should scheduling change. However, the information
  isn't always as rich as some of the other grabbers.
  <li>Internal - These are grabbers which can be internally initiated from
  within Tvheadend using a very simple scheduler. These are typically
  Internet-based services. This can be a quick way to get richer EPG data
  where you don't have decent OTA support.
  <li>External - These provide the option to run grabber scripts externally and
  to send data into Tvheadend via Unix domain sockets. It provides the ability
  to run more complex configurations using things like cronjob's, script
  chains, etc.
 </ul>

 <h2>Grabber Modules</h2>
 <ul>
  <li>EIT    - This is a DVB standards compatible EIT grabber. Typically it
  will retrieve now/next information, though on some networks there may be more
  extensive data published.
  <li>Freesat/view - This is an extended version of EIT that is used by the
  Free-to-air DVB providers in the UK. It includes additional information such
  as series links and episode identifiers.
  <li>OpenTV - This is a proprietary OTA EPG grabber. It's known to be used on
  the SKY networks, but others may use it. You need two configuration files to
  define settings for your particular network, if you don't see yours listed
  please visit IRC #hts for help.
  <li>XMLTV  - This is am Internet-based suite of scripts, for more information
  about XMLTV please visit <a href="http://www.xmltv.org">http://www.xmltv.org</a>.
  To make use of the internal XMLTV grabber you typically require the xmltv-utils
  package to be installed. If you install new grabbers you will need to
  restart Tvheadend to pick these up as they're loaded at startup. If you see
  no XMLTV grabbers listed then most probably XMLTV is not properly installed
  and in the PATH.
  <li>PyEPG  - This is another Internet-based scraper. It currently only
  supports the Atlas UK system (for which you need a key), but it does provide
  a very rich EPG data set. For more information see
  <a href='http://github.com/adamsutton/PyEPG'>http://github.com/adamsutton/PyEPG</a>.</li>
 </ul>

 <h2>Cron multi-line config text areas</h2>
 <ul>

 <li><p>The cron lines looks like:</p>
 <pre>
   # * * * * *  command to execute
   # ┬ ┬ ┬ ┬ ┬
   # │ │ │ │ │
   # │ │ │ │ │
   # │ │ │ │ └───── day of week (0 - 6) (0 to 6 are Sunday to Saturday, or use names; 7 is Sunday, the same as 0)
   # │ │ │ └────────── month (1 - 12)
   # │ │ └─────────────── day of month (1 - 31)
   # │ └──────────────────── hour (0 - 23)
   # └───────────────────────── min (0 - 59)</pre>

 <li><b>Cron special characters</b>
 <dl>
 <dt>Asterisk ( * )
 <dd>The asterisk indicates that the cron expression matches for all values
     of the field. E.g., using an asterisk in the 4th field (month)
     indicates every month.

 <dt>Slash ( / )
 <dd>Slashes describe increments of ranges. For example 3-59/15 in the
     1st field (minutes) indicate the third minute of the hour and every
     15 minutes thereafter. The form "*/..." is equivalent to the form
     "first-last/...", that is, an increment over the largest possible
     range of the field.

 <dt>Comma ( , )
 <dd>Commas are used to separate items of a list. For example, using
     "MON,WED,FRI" in the 5th field (day of week) means Mondays,
     Wednesdays and Fridays.

 <dt>Hyphen ( - )
 <dd>Hyphens define ranges. For example, 2000-2010 indicates every year
     between 2000 and 2010 AD, inclusive.

 <dt>Number-sign ( # )
 <dd>Number-sign defines a start of a comment. The rest of line is
     ignored behind this character.
 </dl>

 </ul>

 <h2>Configuration options</h2>
 
 <h3>General Config</h3>
 <dl>
   <dt>Update channel name
   <dd>Automatically update channel names using information provided
       by the enabled EPG providers.
   <dt>Update channel number
   <dd>Automatically update channel numbers using information provided
       by the enabled EPG providers.
   <dt>Update channel icon
   <dd>Automatically update channel icons using information provided
       by the enabled EPG providers.
   <dt>Periodic save EPG to disk Interval
   <dd>Writes the current in-memory EPG database to disk every x Hours
       (user defined), so should a crash/unexpected shutdown occur EPG
       data is saved periodically to the database (Re-read on
       next startup)
       Set to 0 to disable.
 </dl>
 
 <h3>Internal Grabber</h3>
 <dl>
  <dt>Module:
  <dd>Select which internal grabber to use.

  <dt>Cron multi-line
  <dd>Multiple lines of the cron time specification.
 </dl>
 
 <h3>Over-the-air Grabbers</h3>
 <dl>
  <dt>Force initial EPG scan at startup
  <dd>... no comment

  <dt>Cron multi-line
  <dd>Multiple lines of the cron time specification.

  <dt>EPG scan timeout in seconds
  <dd>The multiplex (mux) is tuned for this amount of time at maximum. If EPG data
      are completed before this limit, the mux is released sooner.

  <dt>Checkbox list
  <dd>Checkbox list to enable/disable available modules.
      By default all grabbers should be enabled.
 </dl>
 
 <h3>External interfaces</h3>
 <p>
 Checkbox list to enable/disable available modules. The path field
 contains the absolute path of the unix domain socket into which EPG
 data can be sent.`
 <p>
 To send data to the socket use the command "netcat -u SOCKET_PATH".
 <br/>
 Note: for some systems the netcat flags can vary so please consult the
 man page.
 
 <h2>Notes</h2>

 <p>
 To apply any changes please use the [Save configuration button]
  
 <p>
 XMLTV/PyEPG - if you are using the internal versions of these modules then
 you must first configure them externally as Tvheadend provides
 no support for this. Nor does it provide the ability to pass command line
 options (for this use the external interface).
 </p>

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